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MOUNTAIN WEST MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 10, 2016Larry EustachyJoe De CimanAntwan ScottLas Vegas, Nevada Colorado State - 88 Boise State - 81 THE MODERATOR: Coach, if we can start with you, just some thoughts on tonight's game. HEAD COACH LARRY EUSTACHY: Well, you have to give Boise State a lot of credit. Neither team stepped back one step. It was just a great college basketball game. 15-round boxing match. Just what it's all about. Both teams were at their highest level. That's probably as good as Boise's played and that's as hard as we've competed all year long. I'm really proud of our guys. And I give Boise a lot of credit. But we made the plays at the end and deserved to win, I thought. Q. You guys, the three-point shot, obviously, you guys have had days where you've hit it. It seemed like it was definitely on tonight. Did you know it was going to be like that ahead of time or was there something that made it click? ANTWAN SCOTT: Coach also says inside out, if it's an open look don't turn it down, shoot it if we're open. He instills that confidence to shoot the ball if we're open, so that's what we've been doing. Q. Do you think that was the best game that you guys have played all season? JOE DE CIMAN: Yeah, I think it was a game where we all stayed together. They had some early runs. We had some runs. But we're a complete team from the coaching staff down. We never flustered, I guess that's a word you can use. We beat a very good Boise State team. Q. What did it take to put them away after 17 ties and 17 lead changes throughout the game? JOE DE CIMAN: At the end of the day, it's us getting stops. We ended up stopping them. Their middle penetration and then offensively Jeremiah Paige had a back breaker of that offensive rebound. We got back on D and stopped them and rebound the ball. Q. I think you guys faced your largest deficit midway through the first half. Coach got a technical and it seemed like you put it into another gear after that. Did that fire you guys up a little bit? JOE DE CIMAN: All season he's been fighting for us. And we all kind of came together, he's fighting for us, we're going to go out and fight. And then that run -- we kind of calmed down. And I think we missed both the free throws and took a deep breath and ended up taking the game. Q. They only shoot one of ten from the three-point in the second half. Was that something you guys felt you did defensively or they missed shots? JOE DE CIMAN: We tried to contain them and do our part. They shoot a high percentage and some aren't going to go in. We wanted to do our job. And Duncan hurt us with the shot fakes. Q. How much did it hurt when you guys started getting in foul trouble? Seemed like they started driving for a lot of layups, and it was hard to contest because so many people were playing with three, four fouls. Was it frustrating at that point in the game? JOE DE CIMAN: Yeah, it was tough for foul trouble. But you could say the same thing, Boise State was in foul trouble the whole game, too. Webb had two early ones and he was out. The officiating is something that us and Boise just had to play through. Q. Aside from wanting to keep the season alive, did you feel like this game was more personal considering the way the last one ended? Tiel came over and said that last one wasn't a fluke. Did that carry over to this game at all? JOE DE CIMAN: As a team, you know, that game is in the past. We have to try to be -- beat the San Jose State team. We didn't think about that game at all. From the very beginning we're trying to advance. It's a one-game season right now. Q. It's been an up-and-down year, obviously, for this team. But why do you think things have come together here at the last minute in the most important time of the year? ANTWAN SCOTT: I think we're listening to our coach. We're buying in. Once we buy in we can be a really good team. And I think 1 through 15 is buying into what he's saying and what he's selling, and we're buying into it. Q. What is it going to take for you to play tomorrow a third game in three nights? ANTWAN SCOTT: As you all know, we practice hard. We're used to it. It's just like another practice. Coach always says our practices are harder than the game. We have to go out and defend and rebound and do what we do. Q. You set the single-season record for three-pointers tonight. Is it easier to kind of accept or understand that accomplishment when you win the game, as well? ANTWAN SCOTT: Yes, yes. As Coach always tells us, and my father always tells me, it doesn't matter how many points you score or how many passes you make if you lose the game. It's all about winning. That win is much bigger than our record. Q. You get Fresno State next. You had a recent battle. I'm sure you didn't think it was your best performance. What did you learn from that game in Fresno that you think you can apply tomorrow night to maybe make a different outcome? JOE DE CIMAN: First off, Fresno State is a very talented team. Marvelle Harris is playing at a high level. The first half they embarrassed us, we were down 20. We didn't follow the game plan. Offensively we were forcing things. We learned from that. We have the film, we'll go watch that. Our coaches will watch all their games tonight and get us ready for that. It's a brand-new game. They had a big win tonight and so did we. It will be a dogfight tomorrow night. ANTWAN SCOTT: I think as Joe said, we're going to watch the film and we're going to see where we made mistakes, and try to learn from the mistakes. I remember one mistake is having a lot of turnovers. Coach preaches every night we can't turn the ball over. As Joe said, it's going to be a dogfight. Q. How important were Tiel's rebounds? He had 14 of them. And it seemed to fire you guys up. JOE DE CIMAN: Tiel is the most unselfish player we have. He's selfless, he'll do anything to win for us. And he's big time, as he's been every game this season. Once we used him offensively going inside out things opened up and he's always working his tail off rebounding, so that's big time for us. Q. You mentioned you had a good feeling coming into yesterday's game. What was kind of the sense coming into tonight's game, was it similar? HEAD COACH LARRY EUSTACHY: I felt good. You've heard me say a bunch that I just think a team that gets to play a game on the court, particularly when it's an 8:30 game, and Boise had to sit around for two days and it's just really difficult. So I thought we had an advantage from the start. I mean, they're a team that can beat anybody on a given night. But it's a tough draw when you get a team that plays as hard as we did tonight and as effective, when you haven't played the day before. Now, on the back end I think it can catch up with you and we're going to have to play more guys tomorrow. But I preached it for a lot, I wanted to play the first. I didn't want to get the fifth seed. We wanted to get the sixth and get more games for this team that just keeps growing like a weed. But at the same time, I felt confident, but I also knew who the opponent was. And they have a lot of talent and they have a great coach. Q. How exciting is it for you to reach this point after the season and everything that you guys have been through? HEAD COACH LARRY EUSTACHY: Well, I don't know if I've had a team that's been through so much that we couldn't control. Gian's shoulder, and some real tragedies. A lot of things people don't even know about, that just couldn't be controlled. But the attitude has always maintained really well. And I think in the last two weeks Jeremiah Paige kind of simulates our team. The guys were saying they've really bought in and they're understanding why we do things a certain way. And Marcus Fizer, a former player of mine, talked to the team after the game and could really talk to the players much better than most, and the 4th pick for the draft, so they had a lot of respect for him. I think what he told them impacted the team a lot, too. Q. Antwan scores 23 points tonight and obviously his scoring is pretty well known, but he also has 7 assists. How have you seen him change as a facilitator throughout this season? HEAD COACH LARRY EUSTACHY: Unbelievable. He's gone from a turnover factory to shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. It's just all he knew. So in such a short period of time, one season, he is a completely different player. And for him to be that way it takes receptiveness. So he's been extremely receptive to everything we've said. And I just -- being a year he couldn't go to the rim and finish like he did tonight, like he has the last ten days. He had more turnovers and assists. It isn't just the shooting. I had to take him out late, he was so tired, he was getting beat off the dribble. But I put him right back in, and he had some great stops. Give him all the credit. He has listened and tried to do everything we tell him to do. And he's become one of the more -- he impacts winning. One of the top ten guys in the league. And he didn't at the beginning of the year. So I think it takes a mature man to be willing to change after so many bad habits, and the way he thought the game should be played and the way we think it should be played. And there was going to be no compromise. So he quickly bought in. Q. John Gillon took the tough fall there late in the game after the foul. Looked like he was really struggling to put weight on his leg, how is he doing right now? HEAD COACH LARRY EUSTACHY: His mom's in there taking care of it. She was right there with us. She's been a rock star all year long. He wasn't going to come out of that game. John's a really, really tough kid, particularly when the game's on. He's a little allergic to practice, but he loves the game. And really how he has gone, we have gone recently. And he's really turned into the guy that -- he's taken it to another level and I think that's why our team has. Q. Is this the best your team's played all year, these last two games, you think, are you truly playing your best basketball right now like you wanted to do all year? HEAD COACH LARRY EUSTACHY: Yeah, I don't think there's any question about it. It was said to one of our guys, Kelly, how does it feel to be back to the way you were playing the first five games of the year? I've always said that it isn't -- the measuring stick by everybody but the coach, is if you win or lose. So we won those five games. We weren't playing well. We were playing as best as we could at the time. But through the months, the weeks, the months, we've gotten to be a really good team. So absolutely this is the best game we played all year long was against San Jose State and I think this was up there, too. I just thought it was a -- we could not have battled that team two months ago the way we did today. We had to do a lot of juggling, a lot of guesswork on who to have in, and who had fouls. We had all different kinds of lineups. But it worked out well. Nobody fouled out. A tough game to officiate. I got a technical, first one of the year, and deserved it. At halftime I went up to our assistant commissioner and apologized for my actions and went up to the ref and said I deserve it. First I was walking up to him and he said, Get away from me, he thought I was going to start yelling at him again. And I said, No, I want to apologize. Let's move ahead and have a great game. But a really difficult game to officiate when you have both teams playing so physical. I thought they did a very commendable job under really adverse situations, because they're very competitive. And I like to think we are, too. When you get those two bulldogs clashing you're going to have a lot of physicality. Q. You got Fresno State last week, right in the middle of the nice run the Bulldogs are on right now. What are they doing well right now that allow them to put wins together and how do you slow them down? HEAD COACH LARRY EUSTACHY: This will be the biggest hurdle so far because I've always bragged on their coach. I've always thought he's as good as anybody in the league. When they weren't even winning the first few years, he's gradually -- has made Fresno State relevant. And they are players. But you can have players, but if you don't have -- you can have a great horse, but if you don't have a good jockey you're not going to win races. And this guy coaches really, really good to get his team to play the right way and play hard. It's one of the few games we weren't really in from the beginning. I'm anxious to see what happens. We have no excuses, but it's our toughest test to date in this tournament. Q. Yesterday you talked about the $300,000 technical. Today it's fair to say this one was probably a little bit cheaper for you; is that fair to say? HEAD COACH LARRY EUSTACHY: Well, it was against Boise once again. And I seem to be technical prone against Boise. Maybe because I coached at Idaho and they were our bitter rivals. But, yeah, I mean it was deserving. We were all excited to play Boise. It's kind of become a rivalry. They've moved their program up and they're relevant. And I like to think we moved our program up and we're relevant. There's a lot of respect amongst coaches and players, both coaches. I think we were out of the box a few times, I'd have to say. Maybe I wasn't looking at Leon much, but it seemed like he was about a foot from me almost the whole game. So that's fine, too. Leon is a great friend and it was a great game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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